UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday he hoped an agreement could be reached soon to ease Western fears over Iran's nuclear program and avert punitive UN Security Council action.
As his International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) opened a meeting in Vienna that could lead to international sanctions against Tehran, ElBaradei talked of a deal in around a week on the issue of Iran doing small-scale uranium enrichment.
He said there was frantic diplomatic activity to try to get Tehran and the EU back to the negotiating table.
"The sticking point remains the question of the centrifuge-related R and D [research and development]," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, a US official warned of consequences if Iran failed to comply.
Speaking to a powerful Israel lobby group in Washington on Sunday, US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said the international community should "use all tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses."
"The Iranian regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation there will be tangible and painful consequences," Bolton told the meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed his country would not be bullied.
"If they want to put political pressure on us, our decisions and behavior will be reconsidered," the official news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.
"We will not be bullied and we ourselves are not bullies."
The Iran dossier is at the top of the agenda at the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors -- although it was unlikely to be discussed until today -- amid Western fears that it is secretly working on making nuclear weapons.
The IAEA's board will hear ElBaradei's assessment on Iran, which is then to go to the Security Council.
A deal on small-scale enrichment, and a resumption of talks between Tehran and the Europeans, would effectively head off Security Council action.
"I think the Security Council will have to have a serious discussion about what the next steps will be," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said over the weekend, but added there was no need to rush to sanctions.
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